Second Attempts [Solo]

[Markus Andres]

19th of fall - 511 AV. Early evening. Markus stomach muscles tightened as he pushed his upper body up. Perhaps he was pushing himself too hard. But he kept feeling his body was inadequate and he wasn't ready for the quest. There must have been a reason that they hadn't given him his quest yet. He had felt ready all through summer, just waiting. Now he just despaired and pushed himself harder and harder. His stomach relaxed as he leaned back again. It burned in his stomach. He would be feeling that for days to come. Markus' gear was lying around him. Shield and bastard sword was on the left side of him and the dagger he often borrowed was lying to his right along with his composite shortbow and a quiver. Within easy arm reach. He was lying on a small hill over looking the Kabrin Road. He had planned on relaxing that day. But he had ended up doing sit ups. Not just a dozen, but 5 dozens. At least he was just wearing his normal clothes and not the heavy armor. But as he lay there and relaxed as his stomach churned with fire, he saw the merchants, hunters and farmers enter and leave Syliras. Even a load of iron ore from the mines to the north. If he just took a couple of chimes relaxing, he could start doing the sit ups again.

[Markus Andres]

Lying there in the green grass, stomach burning. Just relaxing was extremely satisfying to the young squire who rarely gave himself the time of the day to unwind from training and sparring. He even knew this to be healthy for the body. Increase the effect of training to let the body recover completely. He closed his eyes and let the soft breeze roll through the grass and his hair. He put his hands behind his head and rested upon them. Lying there he thought of many and at the same time nothing. His thoughts flowed freely from subject to subject. Life in Syliras, although harsh and disciplined, was good. Had a purpose. More purpose than his life in Zeltiva would have had. Live each day in search for the next coin that would provide a meal. He had seen those types in Syliras, at first he had detested them, felt himself far superior to them. But in time, he had started to pity them rather. His scattered thoughts returned to the knights. Briefly thinking about Stern Mason before over to the knight who had taught him magic. Or rather, a discipline within magic. It had been a while since he had last thought about that magic. When he had been younger, magic had always scared him. The stories of people wielding insane power, capable of turning people into charred corpses. But now, he had joined those ranks. Although, his kind of magic was not capable of doing that. But when he thought about it... How could he be sure that he couldn’t do that? Could he one day produce fire with the magic he had learnt? A mental silence followed as he pondered that. There was really only one way he could find out. He would have to practice the art. He opened his eyes and looked around. Had to see if there was anyone nearby and if he in fact was in a safe position. He got in the posture that the knight mage had shown. Which meant he basically sat resting on his knees. Arms resting in his lap. Thoughts getting more focused on his own body. He recalled the first time he had done this. It had not been easy. In fact, it had taken several chimes before he had understood what he was even trying to do. If he had not had the knight there to help him guide his effort, it would have taken bells, if not days of meditating before he even would have known djed existed within him. Many years before he knew he could move it. Since the day with the knight, he had not used that power. After the session he had become quite scared of the euphoria he had felt with the increased power. It was a scary concept and he had heeded the warnings of the knight. It was time he got intimate with his djed, once again. The first step was to calm down. Focus his thoughts. It was quite the opposite of Markus' training. Which often involved his muscles tensing in sudden bursts of energy, but otherwise being at a constant level of readiness. But now, his muscles relaxed completely. With time he started to hear his heart. Quietly at first, but increased in volume as he focused more inwards. Then a sound in the vicinity had him drop out of the meditative state. His eyes opened and it was a wing of knights returning to Syliras. One of them was looking at Markus, who in turn lowered his head in a bow. The curiosity of the knight sated he continued with his wing. Focus. Markus returned to his meditative state of mind. His heart soon filling his ear drums with the same repitive sound. Markus could feel with each thud he heard, a rush of blood moving from his heart through the veins. It was a weird sensation, weird no matter how many times he felt it. But Markus knew, that it was when he started to feel that, that he would begin to move the energy around. Focus was upon his arms. Deciding to direct it to his left arm. He could feel it. The energy amassed in his left arm. It was amazing. He loved that sensation of being capable of doing anything with that arm. Punch through the thick walls of Syliras. That brief moment of feeling godlike made the long chimes of waiting worth it. It made him smirk and his focus was lost and the amassed energy mostly just balanced out with the rest of his body. The remaining energy was used by Markus when his fist slammed into the grass. His fist pounding half an inch into the ground. "Amazing." Was the words that left his mouth, but inside, he berated himself for the loss of control.

[Markus Andres]

It was amazing, but he would have to learn how to do it faster so he could do it on a whim and use it for purposes beyond meditating and pounding the ground. Learn to utilize it in combat! That was the goal. With the goal in mind he relaxed once again. Sitting there. He started to calm himself down. Try and regain the focus he had had earlier. Inwards. Inwards! INWARDS! His heart punded loudly in his ears. He believed he could even feel his veins expand and retract as the flow of blood rushed through at a greater intensity. It was quite amazing. He was lost in this amazing feeling. Quite intimidated by it as well, but still in awe that he was in such a connection with his body. But after a chime of such sensations, he grew weary of it and instead returned focus on mastering the flow of djed within his body. But no matter how hard he tried to find it, he could not. He simply couldn’t sense the flow. He could not locate any djed at all. Was this overgiving? He grew frustrated. He got angry. But he was stuborn as a mule, so he did not give up. No matter how angry and frustrated he got. Several times he tried to calm himself and regain focus, but as there was no immediate gain, the frustration returned. When he opened his eyes again, he was not aware that almost a bell and a half had passed of him trying to locate the djed. He had been lost within himself and lost to the frustrations and anger. He pushed against the ground. His body flew up and he was on his feet. Three mighty strides later he was in range of a tree and said tree received a massive punch right in the middle of the trunk. Markus could feel the trunk of tree leave its marks on his knuckles. Intricate patterns appeared and blood even flowed from one of the knuckles. “PETCH!” He kicked the trunk instead. Kicked it many times. Even reached up into the tree and started pulling on a branch. Wanton destruction. Except he was doing more damage to himself than to the tree. His only souvenir from the attack was the branch he had bravely attacked. He had broken it off and was now beating the tree with the branch. Before long, Markus lay on the ground panting like he had just run a marathon. That much for his attempt to relax that day. Lying there in the grass looking at the blue sky. His body was hurting at random spots, like his knuckles and his shins and feet. It was perhaps a good lesson. Do not attack trees with your bare hands. Only good thing was that all his frustrations and anger had been vented and perhaps also that he now could feel the muscles he had tried to target with his magic.

[Markus Andres]

As soon as his lungs stopped feeling like he was breathing liquid fire from the exhaustion, he closed his eyes again. Determined not to let a meager setback stop him from wielding the power of Flux. There was not a single drop of doubt in him, that he would find a way to quickly and efficiently use the djed within him. He would not fail. A mantra he told himself again and again as the visual world around him turned to darkness and his ears started to pick up more. His nose caught the scent of nearby flowers that had not given way to the winter yet. He could feel his own sweat feel sticky between clothes and skin. It would have been distracting had he not have to content with all the various tiny irritations from the various light but fresh injuries kept his attention upon them. But soon, even that had to fade as his mind lost interest in the nuisance. Once in a while he would focus on an injury briefly before losing interest as he knew he could do nothing about it. His heart rate steadily declined as he sought deeper into himself. The physical exertion had ended and his body adjusted accordingly. The oxygen debt slowly being repaid and his body no longer needed vast amounts of it to reach status quo. With eyes closed lightly, he soon felt something familiar. The energy that he had sought so desperately earlier had come to him much easier when he had not… felt stressed. Not aggressively tried to feel it and wield it. But rather. Calmly tried to find it amidst the dozen if not hundreds of different things he could focus on his body. He also felt oddly invigorated, despite almost beating himself to a bloody pulp against a tree. He pushed the energy around a little. The euphoria was there almost instantly. He was pushing around raw energy! Raw energy feeding his muscles who in term produced raw power. Raw unrestrained power. But he ignored the euphoria the best he could. He pushed the energy down to his stomach. That was a huge muscle area. The energy followed the channels to his stomach. He made an incredibly easy sit up at a speed that was quite unreal. He could feel his abs burn a little at the sudden and violent expenditure of energy. But soon the burning would subside. Common side effect of working the muscles. He knew the feeling well from the grueling training his master had put him through. His developed abs flexing as he made a sit up. But Markus was not satisfied. He wanted to do more with the energy before it vanished, so he tried to push it in a new direction, but nothing. He lost track of it, his focus had vanished. The energy just seemed to dissipate into every direction. Every possible channel the energy could find. Markus opened his eyes slowly. He gazed at the fortress city before him. His stomach grumbled lightly. He had been out there for a while. It was time he headed back inside and got something to eat.

[Chevalier]

Markus

LORE

• Meditative Flux Training
• Locating and Feeling Your Djed
• Cardio, Crazy Style

EXPERIENCE

Skill	XP Earned
Body Building	2
Meditation	3
Flux	4

Storyteller Notes

Secret :

You dumb. Naw just kidding, but you will probably be sore for the next ten days. The kind of sore where you need help getting out of bed. You also have dents in your shines, but that's good right? Means you're training hard! Good job describing working the Djed though in the flux use, that's what I want to see.